SMF

Last read: Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

Currently Reading: House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski, Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet

Plan to read next: Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

last read: paris edition = waverly root

current: the unspoken alliance = sasha suransky

clive

p.s. nice thread richard...thanks

Just on the last of the twelve novels of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. Wonderful if one is a Brit, and possibly rather pointless if one is not. The first novel sequence since Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion that makes me wish I had someone to bounce lit crit ideas off.

Chris

halfway through a historical look at FDR and primarily the new deal. Book at the office, so I will look it up and post. At home, halfway through Rome 1960, a 2008 book looking back at the times and societal era of the 1960 Olympics, the cold-war, the issue of Taiwan not being able to compete under the China name, etc.

I usually have more than one going at a time.

Recently completed: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler and Star Island by Carl Hiassen.

Now reading: The Ninth Directive by Adam Hall (the second Quiller story) and Boston Blackie by Jack Boyle.

Anyone old enough to remember Blackie?

I remember seeing the reruns of the old BB TV series starring Kent Taylor. Years later I found out about the preceding movies.

Current reads: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. I think Tom Robbins' early works call for a reread about now.

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Fundamentalism and American Culture by George Marsden
The Last Boy by Jane Leavy -- Newly released bio of Mickey Mantle

GA Russell wrote:I usually have more than one going at a time.

Recently completed: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler and Star Island by Carl Hiassen.

Now reading: The Ninth Directive by Adam Hall (the second Quiller story) and Boston Blackie by Jack Boyle.

Anyone old enough to remember Blackie?

There must be something in the (shaving) water - I just brought The 9th Directive upstairs to read, dogeared to pick up where I left off last night

THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL by G.K. Chesterton

Residents of a London Suburb declare their independance from the U.K.

A terribly under appreciated writer. I just discovered an american society www.chesterton.org with almost all of his works in reprints. I've been reading him piecemeal as I find older editions for 30 years.

Last: Fleming - Dr No

Now: Cussler - Iceberg

Next: Le Carre - The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

I've been fooling around with the letters of Seneca and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. They're a hard-nosed bunch, those Stoics. So you lost your wife? Get over it! So the emperor has ordered you to drink poison? Remember Socrates and man up!

I'm working on a paperback edition of Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale," a large book on evolutionary biology. The narrative loosely follows the structure of the Canterbury Tales, hence the title.

On Basilisk Station - I'm about 100 pages in, so far so good. Never read a Weber book before. Got this one as a free ebook from Baen.

http://www.amazon.com/Basilisk-Station- ... 0743435710
http://www.webscription.net/p-304-on-ba ... ation.aspx (Get the freebie ebook here.)

"How to read a book" by J. Adler & Ch. Van Doren

i'm currently reading "far from the madding crowd" by thomas hardy.

it's my second time reading it. last time round was around 18 years ago.

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight"

giammi wrote:"How to read a book" by J. Adler & Ch. Van Doren

Old timers like me will know this is the same Charles Van Doren who was famously involved in a 1950's quiz show scandal.

drmoss_ca wrote:Just on the last of the twelve novels of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. Wonderful if one is a Brit, and possibly rather pointless if one is not. The first novel sequence since Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion that makes me wish I had someone to bounce lit crit ideas off.

Chris

I read ADTTMOT for the 3rd time last year- so wonderful.

Currently on the third "Rabbit" book by Updike. Just finished "Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Shteyngart- also can highly recommend.

maskaggs wrote:

GA Russell wrote:I usually have more than one going at a time.

Recently completed: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler and Star Island by Carl Hiassen.

Now reading: The Ninth Directive by Adam Hall (the second Quiller story) and Boston Blackie by Jack Boyle.

Anyone old enough to remember Blackie?

There must be something in the (shaving) water - I just brought The 9th Directive upstairs to read, dogeared to pick up where I left off last night

Mike, it never occurred to me that anyone would be familiar with The Ninth Directive! I'm enjoying it too.

I forgot to mention that I also recently finished my first John Grisham - The Firm. It was fairly enjoyable, but I won't be reading another of his for a long while, I don't think.

Finished G.K. last night and am rereading Brian O'Nolan, nome de plum Flann O'Brian and Myles na Gopaleen's THE THIRD POLICEMAN. I devoured all his work in college and wrote a thesis for my minor on him. My Lit prof had never heard of him and gave me an A for the course after reading A BASH IN A TUNNEL.
O'Nolan mastered old gaelic, a language that has defeated many fine linquists. He wrote a paper in college in it. His profs had a vague idea it was totally obscene ( by irish standards) but again were to embaressed to admit they couldn't fully decypher O.G.

Currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring -J. R. R. Tolkien, then will continue with the trilogy.

Recently finished...in last 12 months or so: The Hobbit -Tolkien, The Anti-Christ -Friedrich Nietzsche, The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand,The Golem's Eye,Ptolemy's Gate -Jonathan Stroud

CAMPING and WOODCRAFT by Horace Kephart